Individuals increasingly eat food away from home, or at home, at work, or even in an automobile, where the food was at least partially prepared or precooked outside at the home. Grill fried eggs are well known and have been made for centuries. Consumers prepare grill fried eggs at home, and also eat grill fried eggs prepared in eating establishments. The grill fried eggs are aesthetically pleasing to consumers, perhaps because grill fried eggs have the appearance of home cooked food and/or food prepared at well-established restaurants.
Many consumers demand eggs prepared at ever-increasingly short time intervals. Some consumers expect cooked eggs to be made available in the time between ordering a product at a speaker post, and the arrival of their automobile at a drive-up window in a fast food establishment. Other consumers expect eggs to be made available shortly after paying for the eggs at the counter of a fast food restaurant, expecting to receive the cooked eggs in less than the time required to cook the eggs, for example, within one minute.
Some fast food restaurants grill fry eggs ahead of time, prior to their being ordered. One such fast food restaurant uses a three-inch ring, open at the bottom, in sets of six. These are put on the grill, the egg deposited in the ring, then covered and steamed. These restaurant prepared eggs, while nutritious, do not closely resemble home, grill fried eggs. They are also made prior to being ordered, allowing for the possibility of wastage if they are not sold within an allotted time period.
Another fast food establishment uses a three and one-quarter inch ring, breaks the egg, puts the egg into the ring, breaks the yolk, and partially cooks the egg. The partially cooked egg is flipped over in the ring, and the ring removed. This allows the remainder of the egg to cook and flow outwardly somewhat. This method also requires the eggs to be made ahead of the short time demanded by some consumers, with the cooked eggs being readily distinguishable from an irregular or randomly shaped, home grill fried egg.
Such cooking methods suffer from drawbacks. Firstly, if the eggs are to be delivered to consumers in a time period less than the time required to break the eggs, cook the eggs, and package the cooked egg product, then the eggs must be cooked prior to the time of ordering. This allows for some wastage, as previously discussed. Secondly, while modern eggs are typically very safely delivered from almost all vendors, the possibility exists for some pathogens being carried with the eggs. While this occurrence is extremely rare, it has happened. Thirdly, the manual preparation of grill fried eggs is somewhat time and labor consuming. In some situations, the cooking grill would not otherwise be required but for the requirement for cooking the grill fried eggs.
What would be desirable are methods and devices for mass producing pre-cooked, cooled eggs that resemble grill fried eggs. Such eggs could be mass produced in a controlled environment to substantially reduce the chance of pathogen contamination. The mass produced, precooked, cooled eggs would preferably resemble home cooked grilled eggs. If mass produced, grill fried eggs were made available, fast food eating establishments could save on labor, and reduce wastage by reheating the previously cooked egg products. What would be most desirable are pre-cooked, cooled, egg products that resemble home, grill fried eggs that could be prepared at a fast food establishment in less than the time required to cook the eggs.